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23 Oct / The pursuit of knowledge. And twitter followers.

I’ve been on a course for the past couple of days, and have the last day of it tomorrow. Just in time for a long weekend to recover. Thank God.

I love learning new things, or even having old things I’ve already learned being re-presented so I can think of them in a new and exciting way. It’s all good. I usually learn by experimenting on my own, which is an incredibly close-minded way to learn, so whenever I get the opportunity it’s great to join in with a class. Much more open-minded, though not so much that my brain will fall out, as Dawkins would say.

There are a few drawbacks to learning with a group of course. They don’t go at your speed. Either you’re sitting there going, get on with it, get on with it. Or sitting there going what. What just happened. Wozzit mean?

Then there are all the different personality types that happen when disparate people are trapped in a conference room specially designed to hold at least four fewer people. (Fewer. See. That’s for you, my darling.)

There are definitely roles that are mandatory in any group of people. I usually audition fairly early on for the role of class-clown, but there have been a few too many medications and a few too many side-effects going on lately to keep the pace up after the first morning. It’s awfully tiring you know. Luckily that’s a popular role so there are plenty of other fillers. Auditions over, sorry Katherine you didn’t get the part this time.

Then there’s the person who knows more than the instructors. Yeah, you bet you know that one. Oh god. Make it stop. Make it stop.

And you remember the person with the annoying anecdotes that don’t quite fit any situation but get trotted out for… I don’t know. I assume there’s some sort of reason. Surely there’s some reason. Surely you’re not putting us through this just because you like the sound of your own voice. Like the heckler who stands up in the middle of the show and shouts out “ME!”

Last of all there’s the one who makes everyone else feel smart by virtue of never getting the theory behind anything, but who is also incredibly annoying because it was bad enough to hear that theorem spouted the first time, by the third it’s into wrist-slitting territory.

I’ve been making up games with myself to get through. I have a “follow people on twitter without anyone seeing you with your phone” game going on that’s been very successful so far. I’ve also taken a few photos of Found, Near Water near various appliances in the room without raising anybody’s eyebrows. That I know about anyway.

I’ve written at least ten pages of notes on how to make the second draft of my novel so much better than the first draft, and also noted down a couple of random thoughts that might turn into my fourth or fifth novel. Maybe.

I’m getting a bit desperate though. I could conceivably try to book my entire holiday for next September on my phone without looking at the screen, but we’re heading into some dangerous waters there. Credit cards are involved. Or I could try to whisper commands into my smart-watch that it can interpret but the rest of the room can’t hear – but that’s just foolishness. I don’t have a smart-watch. Refer Customer Service blog for reasons why.

I suppose the port of last refuge would be to actually pay – I don’t know – like, attention? to the class.

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